A glass of red wine.
A cellar is a room, or in some cases a cabinet, intended to store and protect wine. It can vary in size, cost and effectiveness. In recent years, several affordable options have appeared on the market, allowing even casual wine drinkers to stock up on wine.
Intended to protect wine, a cellar can protect against the three traditional enemies of bottled wine: heat, dryness and light. A good cellar keeps the wine at a fairly low temperature, with a good amount of humidity, and in relative darkness. In addition, a good wine cellar protects against drastic fluctuations in temperature or humidity, which can damage the wine very quickly.
A barrel of wine.
The term cellar is often used to describe any place intended to protect wine for an extended period of time, but must strictly refer to an actual underground cellar. An above ground wine cellar is more appropriately called a wine room, and the smaller refrigerators that many people use in their homes are wine cabinets.
Within the scope of an actual winery, there are two main types: passive winery and active winery. A passive cellar would be somewhere that is naturally cool and humid, and also doesn’t change much depending on the season. Deep natural caves are often used as passive wine cellars, but man-made clay cellars can also work well in the right environment.
Cellars are warehouses intended to store and care for wine bottles.
Active wineries use insulation, monitoring and cooling systems, artificial humidifiers and seals. These basements can be very expensive, depending on their size, but they allow for more dynamic construction. They can also be a more ideal form of protection for valuable wines.
A wine room or a wine cellar at home can be built by a specialized company or on your own. Many people find that they can turn a spare cupboard into a functional wine cellar without spending a lot of money or time. The most important thing is simply to keep the wine fresh and at a constant temperature. Ideally, the wine will stay around 50°F (10°C), with no more than a few degrees of variation throughout the year.
The cellars offer a dark and quite humid environment.
Many companies now also offer small electric wine coolers, which are actually wine cabinets or wine coolers. They come in many different sizes and in a number of different price ranges. The smallest ones can hold only a few bottles, while the largest freestanding ones can hold over 100 bottles. The cheapest wineries only regulate the temperature of the wines, some with two different “zones”, one for reds and one for whites. More expensive wineries keep wines in constant humidity, which may or may not help protect the natural corks from drying out and damaging the wine.
Many wineries require some type of humidifier.
Some companies also come to your home and turn a closet or spare room into their own warehouse. They install additional insulation, temperature monitors and some type of humidifier. Many consumers find these conversions surprisingly affordable.
There is another alternative to the traditional cellar for those who want to protect their wines, but do not want to invest in excavating their own cellar or looking for a natural cave. Many self-storage facilities offer temperature and humidity controlled environments for a monthly fee. This can be a surprisingly effective way of keeping a large number of wines protected for years to come, although it’s a good idea to make sure the temperature range is really stable and ideally find a unit that offers some form of insurance for the products you store. there.